


The years after the adventure ends

by orphan_account



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, UNIT, United Nations Intelligence Taskforce (Doctor Who)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24257155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: What would happen if the Doctor never returned? Presumed dead by team tardis they all have no choice but to move on with their lives. How will Yasmin Khan cope now stranded back in Sheffield with the guilt of death on her mind?
Relationships: Martha Jones/Mickey Smith, The Doctor & Yasmin Khan, Thirteenth Doctor & Yasmin Khan & Graham O'Brien & Ryan Sinclair, Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan, Yasmin Khan/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 6





	The years after the adventure ends

**Author's Note:**

> I know the Doctor is not dead and is coming back to them but this came to me during a board meeting and I couldn't resist.  
> I am sure there are loads of spelling mistakes in this but please enjoy all the same!

“Can I help you?”  
It had been barely 10 days since the Doctor had dropped them all home; the cold winter appear was now very much upon them. Much to everyone’s confusion the Tardis has dropped them home in the middle of October, October 11th. A date that wasn’t leaving the police officers brain anytime soon It almost annoyed Yaz how quickly Graham and Ryan had slipped back into their old life. Ryan had told his friends that his ‘freelance travelling days’ were behind him, that after all this time Sheffield was still the place he wanted to call home. The whole country had seen their faces plastered over everywhere so pretending that they were off seeing the world was very much out of window. It surprised them how quickly the world had moved on, it had been nearly a year since that case, since the beginning of the end for the Doctor, for the Fam.  
Today marked Yaz’s first day back at work, she had avoided going home, back to the flat her family shared. She didn’t want to lie to them, but she didn’t know how to explain everything, she couldn’t find the words to explain what had happened to the person she cared about. The police officer couldn’t put into words how much death she had witness or how much pain she now saw in the world around her. She had touched the future and now something about dinner with her family felt like a lie.  
She had been staying in the Tardis that dropped them home. No one questioned where the house appeared from. The neighbours even smiled at her as she left for as she locked the door to the other Tardis, the spare Tardis, and headed to work. After returning to the ship she was surprised to find there was a small front room that had appeared when opening the fake front door. Yaz hadn’t seen a chameleon circuit in working order before so she wasn’t sure what to make of it, if she wasn’t grief stricken she would have been amazed at the situation, but she simply didn’t have the energy, the Tardis had only created one fake room, opening the door at the back off ‘living room’ took her back to the Tardis control room, it still didn’t look like the Doctors Tardis, Yaz wasn’t sure that it would make her feel better if it did. Yaz had found a bedroom and was using that as if it was her own. Her sleep pattern was nonexistence, never letting her brain switch off. Even when she finally switched off it wasn't uncommon for her to wake up screaming. Having to watch the doctor walk away time and time again. Yaz couldn't believe she had let her do it, walk into the suicide mission. After all they had been through, all the promises made that was how it ended. She couldn't comprehend  
“Um, I’m sorry do you live here?” The women who was staring though the window of the home said turning to look at Yaz.  
There was a moment of silence as the two women analysed each other. Yaz vaguely recognised the women but it wasn’t someone she could place. The face, she felt like she had seen it before. The second thing the police officer noticed was the small metal contraption in the hand of the women dressed in black. It hardly looked police issued. Yaz smiled to herself as she remembered something similar the Doctor used to keep in one of the cupboards in the walls, next to the emergency bottle of vinegar.  
“Yeah, I’ve just moved in,” Yaz said slowly trying to look for anything that might explain who this woman was, everything looked as expected, nothing seemed out of place.  
“Just you?”  
Yaz nodded a bit concerned of the amount of questions coming from the stranger. People didn’t tend to ask loads of questions to someone in uniform.  
“Big house just for you,” The other women remarked before she looked down at her machine again.  
“I sort of got it off a friend.”  
“Some friend,” The women chuckled to herself, trying to work out if she knew anyone who would gift her a house.  
“It was a parting gift, I guess. Not that she realised she was leaving it to me, but she just had to go and get herself killed.” Her words trailed off as her brain caught up with her mouth. No one could know she was grieving.  
There was a brief silence from both parties, neither one of them sure where to proceed.  
“Anyway, can I help you with something or do you look through police officers’ windows for fun?” She spoke sharply as she snapped out of her trance slipping back into the real world.  
“There was a high level of Artron energy reported at this address. Just be glad it’s just me, last time a level was this high UNIT raided the Ponds place,” The women spoke confidently, there was no doubting was she said. She had power in her voice. “Found a poor man in his boxers.” The agents voice tailed off this time.  
Yaz let out a short sharp sigh, she knew who the ponds were, of course she did. Very rarely the Doctor would mention someone from her past, from her journeys with the faces that the fam didn’t know. The ponds: the roman and the girl who waited. They were the reason the Doctor wouldn’t take them to Manhattan. 

“I really would like to enter my house now,” Yaz said ignoring the comments. That’s when she saw it, the small UNIT logo on the women’s jacket, before she could process her mouth opened.  
“I didn’t think UNIT was a thing anymore, something about budget cuts?” As soon as the words started to flow from her mouth she wanted to disappear.  
“And I didn’t think the average police officer knew who UNIT was,” The UNIT agent said sharply, there was a twinkle in her eye, something that Yaz used to see in the Doctor when she was on her way to a break through.  
“I was involved in the arrest of Daniel Barton, MI6 mentioned it.” Yaz knew she was a bad liar but she could feel herself starting to stumble. Why would MI6 have mentioned UNIT, that made no sense Yaz muttered to herself trying to not overthink.

“There were budget cuts, but all back up and running now. A generous donation from an unknown source.” The UNIT women chuckled as she spoke as if she knew where the money had come from.  
“And what is so special about the energy you are getting off my house? Is it like a gas leak?” Yasmin Khan asked taking a couple more steps towards her front door as the women stood there.  
“Sort of like a gas leak, but if gas was a like a from a crack in time… well radiation in time, like particles that appear because of things…”The women spoke fast, Yaz couldn’t help but smile as she watched the unknown agent try to pretend that Artron energy wasn’t to do with travelling in space.  
“So nothing like a gas leak.” Yaz smiled a little bit. She had missed talking about the impossible.  
“You don’t seem overly concerned. I have just told you something is seriously wrong with your house. You could be in serious danger. We only know one thing that produces this much Artron energy and let’s just say it doesn’t look like a detached house in Sheffield.” The agent finely broke eye contact and glance around the darkening street, nothing looked out of the ordinary, there was no blue box, no scattered alien tech and the scans were showing only humans.  
“What can I say, I’ve been travelling…” There was a brief pause in Yaz’s thought process. “Nothing much phases me anymore.”  
“Seeing large a large spider in Australia isn’t quite the same thing,” The women said sharply looking back-down at her silver machine and turning it slightly.  
“Do I look like the kind of person that went to find themselves in Australia?” Yaz matched the tone of the agent stood in front of her, deciding in that moment that she no longer had the mental energy to entertain this conversation.  
Silence fell between the two women.

“I’m going to go into my house now, are you planning on spending the night on my driveway?”  
“Just doing my job.”  
“Well as your little device told you, I am completely human. Nothing special about me.” Yaz unlocked the door. Opened it just enough to slip inside and slammed it shut.

The Tardis she was now calling home felt so dark with the door shut, so empty now the whole world had been shut out. It wasn’t built to be a house, not really. It was built to see the world yet Yaz couldn’t work out how to get the TV working or find the swimming pool or the fancy showers, she wasn’t even sure if this Tardis had fancy showers or a swimming pool.

She crumpled to the floor leaning on the door, she couldn’t help but let the tears fall. Pulling her phone out of her pocket she saw 17 missed calls from her sister.  
Wiping her tears away she dialled the number back taking a deep breath before putting the phone to her ear.  
“Yaz, I saw Ryan! Are you all back? How could you come back and not said anything!” Her sister spoke like a child on sugar, barely letting air escape as she spoke.  
“It's been rough. The last trip…” Silence went over the phone. “I needed to recover”  
“Well Dad won’t shut up about the hero that you are. Told all the whole block about his hero policewomen daughter. Where are you staying?”  
“I have a house, well, the Doctor, had, a place.”  
“I told mum you and her were together. You haven’t come home after 2 months away just so you could get laid. Yaz! Is it bad that I am kinda proud of you,” Her sister spoke fast in the way she always had but this time Yaz couldn’t think of a snappy reply.  
“The Doctor, she umm, well, she died. She died to save us, so that we could come home, so that I could come home.” It was the first time Yaz had said those words out loud. The first time she had admitted what really happened.  
“I will pick you up, we can get a coffee or a pint. You don’t even have to see Mum or Dad.” Sonya spoke softly in the way she used to speak to her little sister when she was a struggling teen.  
The sisters spoke softly for a few more minutes. Yaz slowly gave her sister the address of where the Tardis had landed.  
“I will be there in 15, maybe 20 if that speed camera is still working down the high street.” Her younger sister said before putting the phone down.

A single tear slid down from her warm, brown eyes, followed by another one and another one, until soon a steady stream of salty tears flowed its way down her cheek, she didn’t have time to be sad. That’s what she had to tell herself. That the Doctor, her Doctor wouldn’t have wanted her to be sad. She would have wanted Yaz to live to find herself, to do all the things they laughed about. Yaz knew that she shouldn’t be upset but for the first time since they got back, she let her tears run dry.  
Unbeknown to Yaz her sister had pulled up outside. Sonya never one for subtly approached the women pacing up and down with different pieces of equipment near Yaz’s front door,  
“Are you looking for Yaz too or did you used to know the Doctor?” The women turned on her heels to Sonya.  
“The Doctor,”  
“Yeah, I am pretty sure it was an under-cover code name. My sister has a strange job and stranger friends.”  
“Your telling me,” The women muttered before ignoring Sonya and pretending to walk away from the door. 

There was a harsh knock on the door, waking Yaz up from reality. She wiped the tears from her cheek and opened it slowly.  
“Hey,” She had barely set a foot out of the door before her sister covered her in a hug, the kind that only your family could get away with.  
“There is a creepy women, I think she is looking for the Doctor,” Sonya said while holding her sister tight.  
Yaz let herself breath before looking around but the women wasn’t there anymore.  
“Let’s go to the pub,” Sonya said linking arms with her sister.

\---------------

“I loved her you know,”  
“I know,”  
“It was complicated, but she was…” Yaz wiped her tears and stopped talking.  
“I know,” Her sister said again.  
“Anyway, tell me about you, how have you been?”  
Yaz let her sister talk, she spoke about the annoying family that have just moved in next door and that their mum is now refusing to stay in a hotel that hasn’t been fumigated much to her sisters horror of having to phone places to ask when they last got checked for spider nests. She briefly spoke about Dad and her new job. Sonya was talking so Yaz didn’t have to, Yaz didn’t want to say anything. She didn’t really have anything to say, she couldn’t tell her sister what had happened, after what happened with MI6 her family no longer asked, but this time she really couldn’t say anything. No lie would have made sense, nothing made sense. In every situation she had to admit the Doctor had died. Died to save her. Died because she thought it was all her fault. 

When they walked back to the house Yaz couldn’t help but miss her families flat.  
“I am going to come home soon, I just need to sort all her crap out,”  
“Don’t shut people out,” Was all Sonya could reply; reminding them both of their mum.  
“Noted,” Yaz smiled a sad empty smile. One that her sister hadn’t seen since they were both teenagers.

“I never introduced myself,” the UNIT women came out of the shadows as Yaz waved her sister off.  
“I am Dr Martha Jones.” Martha handed Yaz a card. “When you are ready to tell me about your travels, I am ready to listen,” 

\---------------

Yaz had almost completely forgot about the visit from the women in black, she had thrown herself back into work. Doing anything to avoid thinking about the Doctor, thinking about the life she could have had. She tried not to think of the versions of the future she saw but she recycled everything now, she stopped using single use plastic bags, she couldn’t help but try to be better. To be the person she should be. The person the Doctor made her be.  
She hadn’t made it back to the family yet but she had met her Mum for lunch, she didn’t have anything to say. She pushed the pasta around her plate before paying the bill. 

“Don’t push us out Yasmin,”  
“I am coping” she replied. Before her mum pulled her in for the kind of hug a mother could only give. Yaz let herself sink into her mother's hold, she relaxed, and she let herself feel at home. The young women knew she couldn’t go home, that if she did reality would truly sink in. The Tardis, that didn’t look anything like the one she loved reminded her of all she had seen. It reminded her of the group of people that redefined family. 

The days continued to pass, Yaz was now actively avoiding her friends. She was avoiding there calls and ignoring texts when Sonya mentioned them, they are knew it wasn’t personal, it was surviving.  
She didn’t need to see them getting on with their lives when she was struggling to get out of bed in the morning, when she couldn’t look her anyone in the eyes without being caught up in a lie. 

The weeks started to roll over it had now been nearly a month since they arrived back, according to the rest of the world she was now back to normal routine but when the door to the house shut her brain switched over, no matter how hard the young officer tried her brain wouldn’t stop thinking, wouldn’t stop drifting back to the stories she could never tell. She had finally agreed to go back to the flat. Not to stay just to see her Nana and Dad, she missed them, her Mum was hoping it would remind her of what her life was like, of how normal it was. She slipped a jumper on and started walking through town letting her headphones distract her from how small the world now felt, when put her hands in her pocket, she felt the card given to her by Martha Jones. She recognised the name as soon as it was said. She put the pieces together from there. Martha jones, Dr Martha Jones, from London. The Doctor didn’t say much about what happened to her, other than she was happy and she left. She had got married; the Doctor had mentioned that. Yaz never knew if the Doctor went to the wedding. She couldn’t imagine the Doctor at a wedding.  
As she was walking to the bus stop, she dialled the number on her phone. Staring at it before letting it ring.

“Hi, my name is Yasmin Khan. I am calling to speak to...” The young women couldn’t finish her sentence before the overly friendly women cut her off.  
“Calling to speak to Dr jones, yes she has been waiting for your call,”  
“Cool, not creepy at all,” Yaz muttered to herself partly wondering what the women was still doing at the office after 5.  
“Doctor Jones.” The women’s voice sounded different over the phone, more commanding.  
“Hi its um, Yaz. Yasmin Khan. We met a couple of weeks ago. You were trying to break into my house, energy hunting,”  
“Yaz. Hi, I actually didn’t think you would call.”  
“Full of surprises me.”  
Silence over the phone  
“Anyway, I know why you came to that house. You weren’t looking for me.”  
Silence  
“The person you are looking for, they died. There was a war… sort off and then captain Jack, cybermen, and the Master and a bomb.”  
“The Master,” Was all Dr Jones could reply, after all this time just the name scared her more than anything else she had encountered. Dr Jones hadn’t seen Jack since the funeral of Sarah-Jane. They always tried to stay in touch but it was complicated, they both reminded each other of version of life they both no longer lived.  
Silence

“Anyway, she’s dead. The Doctor she died.”  
Silence, Yaz pulled her phone from her ear to check the call hadn’t disconnected.

“You work for Hallamshire police right?”  
“Umm yeah,” the policewomen replied unsure if the UNIT agent had heard anything that she had said.  
“We should grab a coffee and talk this through. Because the Doctor is something very few people understand,”  
This time Yaz didn’t have any words.  
“I will come to you,” Martha Jones continued.  
“As long as you don’t scan me with anymore alien tech, ” Yaz let herself smile a little bit, she didn’t want to think about what the women next to her on the bus was thinking.  
“Tomorrow,”  
“I have work,” Yaz said slowly not actually sure what her hours were for the next day.  
“You now have a mission briefing all day. Put in from someone way above your bosses pay grade. There is that coffee shop not far from your house, I passed it when I was... Energy hunting” The women smiled a little as she spoke, while Doctor Martha Jones was very serious since returning to UNIT talking about the Doctor, about the insane, the future and the past couldn’t help but excite her.  
“See you tomorrow,” Yaz said calmly trying not to feel like she had just signed her death sentence. Yaz had never met anyone from UNIT but the Doctor had told stories, they were powerful but powered by science with a side of guns instead of the other way round.  
“10am” The UNIT agent said before hanging up the phone.

The phone went dead and she shut her eyes. The police officer hoped for the days where she was knee-deep in paperwork or staring a traffic camera; where she could forget about all she had seen, , on the quiet days her brain tried piece back her life it just didn’t quite fit right. It was missing something; it was missing her Doctor.

She put the card and her phone back into the pocket of her jacket, her hair was up in a bun and she knew she looked tired. She paced up and down the stairs trying to work out whether she should use her key or knock. It didn’t feel like home anymore. Nowhere did. But it also didn’t feel like she was guest. 

“You just standing there?” The door opened before Yaz had decided what the best course of action was. It was her Dad. His smile echoed through every corner of his being as he stood in the doorway.  
“No sorry was looking for my key,” She replied quietly before embracing her father in a warming embrace.  
“Tea is nearly ready,”  
Yaz smiled at her dad before letting herself take one deep breath to calm her nerves.  
“You got this Khan,” She whispered to herself as she let the white flat door close behind her. She couldn’t help but feel instantly trapped as if the walls were closing in, in that moment she knew she had might the right decision not coming home. The police officer didn’t belong in her family flat anymore for the first time every she had truly out ground it.

“Did you hear Ryan is taking your sister out for a drink tomorrow night?” Her Mother said before she even had a chance to open her mouth.  
“Mum!” Sonya snapped back , “It’s just a drink Yaz, you said you and him were just friends and plus maybe this way I will get to hear about all your travels”  
“Good for you Son,” She forced an empty smile on her face and went to sit on the sofas. Maybe this was a bad idea she thought to herself trying to keep her smile plastered over her face.  
“I’ve got you,” a quiet voice said breaking the police officer out of her head space. It was her Nana who put her hand on Yaz’s and held it just for a moment.  
They didn’t say anything else, just sat there both ignoring the rest of the Khan household. Maybe being home wasn’t so bad after all.  
“You should come shopping with us tomorrow, we are only going down the high street, it will do you good to do something other than work or sitting alone in that empty dead women's house. Sonya needs to get something for her works secret Santa, even though she should have brought it before all the prices went up,” Her mother said as tactfully as ever. Yaz was nearly 100% sure the Christmas price rise was just one of her Dad’s theories he had said so often her Mother had just taken it as true but all the same.  
“I’m actually working tomorrow mum,” Yaz chose to ignore the comments about the house or the Doctor. She didn’t know what to reply. Her Mum was right it was a dead women's house, even if it wasn’t really a house nor did it belong to the Doctor. Yaz decided that she wasn’t holding it together any more swiftly standing up and deciding that it was time to exit the situation.  
“Yaz I didn’t mean,” Her Mum said slowly,  
“It’s fine, I have to get up early so I better be heading off,”  
The silence as she left meant she knew she had made the right decision. The thing with travelling with the Doctor, the one thing Yaz didn’t want to admit was that the reality when it’s all over is devastating. As she waited for her Uber home, she realised that’s why so many of the Doctor companions die rather than walk away, because dying is easier than giving it up.

A Black car appeared outside the coffee shop not long before 10 the next morning.  
Martha Jones stepped out locking the car swiftly behind her, as promised she didn’t bring any alien tech to scan the surrounding areas. She couldn’t believe what the young women she had met had told her but it did all make sense. The level of Artron energy in the air and surrounding the mysterious police officer but without any sign on the Doctor. And no blue box. She was wearing colour today and large wooden earrings, she was no longer officer Martha jones. She was meeting this woman as herself. That’s what she promised. She was there to talk about the Doctor to listen to someone else’s stories. It had been so long since she had even heard his name. When she went freelance that was the end of her hearing about him. She had tried to move on from expecting the sound of the blue box but after her husband's death and her sudden rehiring at the unified intelligence task force she couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to her clever man in the coloured suits. 

Yaz had been sat there since 9.30, hoping she didn’t see anyone she knew. She didn’t fancy making small talk with an old woman she hadn’t seen in years. Yaz looked up from checking her phone for the 16th time in 7 minutes, as the women entered the coffee shop, Martha let herself make eye contact and smiled slowly.  
“Thank you for agreeing to see me,”  
“Well I really didn’t like the idea of people raiding my house,” Yaz was trying to stay calm while preparing herself to talk about the Doctor.  
The silence fell over the two women. Both of them had so much to say but neither of them knew where to start.  
“I know who you are,” Yaz blurted quickly.  
“I wish I could say the same about you but I’ve looked you up, nothing unusual your entire life. Your whole life completely textbook, I mean until the whole Daniel Barton thing but even that was just you doing your job, yet you end up in a house covered in Artron energy and then your sister said you knew the Doctor and suddenly it all made sense.”

Yaz smiled before looking down at the coffee menu.  
“I mean I did say I had been travelling,”  
“I can’t believe I genuinely thought you went to Australia.” There was a similarity between the two women as they spoke.  
“If it makes you feel better so does my Mum,”  
“Somehow that doesn’t help,” The UNIT agent bowed her head and smiled.  
“So how long had it been between us? Travelling with him I mean,”  
“The Doctor, is a woman now, but she never said.”  
“A women, now that I would like to see,”

“She said you were married,” Yaz said awkwardly looking at the finger to find the lack of wedding ring.  
“Obviously that was the one thing he, she, was going to remember.”  
“Yeah I was, wonderful man, but life after the Doctor, no matter what direction you go, it doesn’t get easier, we worked freelance for almost a decade, we had a son, life was moving on then one day he didn’t come home. It's a great big universe we all saw things, crazy unbelievably things we would fight a sontaran or help a lone zygon then attend parents evening or a game night, we had the perfect balance of the unbelievable and the believable, but being in a car accident, wasn’t crazy or unbelievable. It was real life.” She paused for a moment, “The thing we never took seriously,”  
Martha didn’t look at the young girl as she spoke but it was nice to speak all the same. She had been advised by many to seek a therapist or a support group but there was no group for the things she had seen or the things her and Mickey had been through, so it was nice to talk to someone.  
The young girl on the other hand wasn’t sure what to reply, she could imagine trying to mix the real world and the unbelievable.  
“It’s a great big universe,” Yaz said slowly after processing all the information.  
“Your telling me, sometimes I can’t believe I ever gave it up.”  
“The feeling you would get when the Tardis had just landed. The fear and excitement,”  
“A friend once described it as it was like swallowing a hamster,” Martha Jones spoke softly as if she was reciting an ancient text. She didn’t let herself think about the people she had met while her life with intertwined with the doctor but ever so often the thoughts were slip through.  
Yaz let out an audible laugh realising that the odd description kind of made sense, “Well there is no going back now,” Yaz muttered, it was barely a whisper but it was heard by the UNIT agent loud and clear.

The women fell into silence as the waitress came and took their order.  
Their coffee’s arrived and they sat a little bit more.  
“Just to be clear, the house isn’t actually going to be raided?” Yaz asked trying not to mention the fact that it was a Tardis.  
“I declared it as non-threat, your readings will fade over time.” Yaz smiled to acknowledge the information while trying to work out if the energy will ever fade or if UNIT check in will become an annual thing.  
“What happened?” Martha Jones said quietly.  
“The Master.” Yaz said slowly, “And cybermen.”  
“It’s always The Master,” Martha Jones hadn’t heard that name in a long time, it was the one person she didn’t look up when she returned to UNIT, she wanted to pretend he was dead and gone.  
“She used a bomb; it was the only way but there was just no time.” Her eyes shifted to the side again and became glazed with a glassy layer of tears. As the young officer blinked, they dripped from her eyes and slid down her cheeks.  
“There never is with the Doctor,” Martha muttered, hearing the Masters name sent a shiver down her spine. She had heard from Kate what the Master was like; that the Master didn’t look the same, that the Master went to Missy. Martha was guessing that the Master that killed the Doctor didn’t have the same face as the one that nearly killed her Doctor. 

“I can’t help but look up at the stars and wonder about all the places I could have seen but didn’t. All the places she had mentioned but we hadn’t bothered to see. Had I known it was going to end the way it did there were plenty more things I would have asked to see, pushed to see,” Both girls looked out the windows in silence staring at Sheffield high street.  
The women sat in silence for several minutes, it was more comfortable silence then outside the Tardis house.  
“I’m not going to pretend that losing the Doctor was easy. It was not easy to stop. The one thing I hold onto is that leaving the Doctor saved my family. I know even looking back that I made the right choice.” There was a brief pause as the women gathered her thoughts, “But there are days where I wonder if anyone in another universe, on another plant, in another time zone still remembers my name. It keeps me going to think that I might have made a difference to someone, it always helped me make the loss of it all feel worth it.” Yaz listen to the older women. She seemed so much wiser than she imagined, every word that flowed out of Dr Jones mouth somehow made the young police officer feel better, or more normal.  
“I think I would have stopped eventually but I never thought she would die. I always got the impression she would bury us all before a wrinkle even appeared on her forehead.”  
“You will get your life back, when I left him, I was lucky I found UNIT, I almost phase myself out of him. I basically did it all just without the time travel or other planets,”  
“Doesn’t sound half as interesting,” Yaz said wiping the final tear from her face.  
“Well it depends on where you were before and how much you want to give up,”

They let the subject lighten for a while, laughing about the way the Doctor spoke to the Tardis, both of them smiling at how similar the Doctor was even if they hadn’t met the same one. The personality traits that seeped between the faces. Yaz found it hard to imagine the Doctor as anyone but the women she met but she liked listening to Martha’s stories, even if the people in them were different the principle of them all way the same.  
“Oh shit,” Yaz said changing the subject without thinking as she made dead eye contact with her Mother walking past the coffee shop, her Mum was chuckling with Sonya. Yaz almost wished she were a fly on the wall for that conversation. It had been a long time since she had seen any of her family laugh. Whenever the young policewomen was around everyone spoke sternly and out of concern.  
“My Mum,” Yaz whispered as she heard the door to the coffee shop go. Martha recognised the concerned looked on the women’s face before she even spoke. She had seen a similar stare for almost a year after she left the Doctor. Constantly worried that secretly they were off doing something stupid and dangerous.

“Hey sweetie, thought you were working today?”  
“I am, sort of,” Yaz said quietly not even trying to think of a lie, she was trying not to lie to her parents, avoiding the truth was hard enough.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Martha Jones,” Martha said slowly sensing the tension, it reminded her of how her relationship was with her Mum when she first got back from traveling. Martha got the feeling that Yasmin’s parents knew even less then hers.  
“Hey weren’t you the chick outside the house Yaz is sleeping in?”  
Martha nodded,  
“What you doing? You dating a stalker now?” Sonya said before Yaz’s mum shushed her.  
“Seriously Sonya, now is not really the time,” Yaz burst.  
“We both…” Yaz paused.  
“I work for a branch of the Military Government,” Martha said sensing the need to step in, “I used to work with the Doctor. We are just discussing the next steps,”  
The silence could have echoed through the coffee shop.  
“Umm” Yaz’s Mum said with disbelief.  
“Doctor Martha Jones,” She said standing up to shake the hands of the people crashing their conversation.  
“I do have a card if you need to see it,”  
“It’s honestly fine Martha, Sonya is just nosy.” Yaz butted in. The older women chuckled before sitting back down. “I also have a sister, who wouldn’t have been so polite.”  
“What are you a Doctor of?”  
“Medicine, I was a medical Doctor,”  
“At least she’s an actual Doctor,” Sonya chuckled to herself. Both the girls could tell she was finding herself funny.  
“Seriously Sonya now is not the time,”  
“We will leave you to it,” Yasmin's mother said. Before having to practically drag Sonya out of the coffee shop.

“I’m sorry about them, that’s the one thing that the Doctor didn’t help with,”  
“Yeah family and the Doctor are not the easiest thing to juggle even when the Doctor isn’t around anymore,” Martha tried not to think back to how bad it was when she first tried to get settled into normal life, her parents didn’t remember the half of what she saw but everything had changed.  
“Me and my Mum barely said 10 words in the first few months after I returned home,” Martha said slowly thinking back to what it was like after she returned from trip with the Osterhagen key. Her Mother didn’t care that she was part of the team that saved the planet, her Mum just cared she was willing to blow it up first.  
“They just don’t understand what I have seen, on why the flat just doesn’t feel like home anymore,”  
“At least you have that house now, I can’t imagine the Doctor in a house.”  
Yaz smiled.  
“It’s not a house is it?” Martha asked a question, now knowing the answer.  
“Off the books,” The younger women confirmed, “I was being serious. I don’t want any task force breaking down the door, I actually quick like the neighbours”  
The sigh that escaped Martha’s dry lips was slow, as if her brain needed time to process what was going on.  
“Off the record,” Martha said making eye contact with the police officer.  
“Not a house, just looks like a house,” Yasmin smiled.  
“I knew that was a lot of Artron energy,”

The women continued to talk, letting the hours slip neither of them would admit it but there was some level of comfort talking to someone who understood what you had seen but wasn’t there to judge the decisions and choices that were made. They each had their own stories but you could interchange each person in it for someone they knew.  
Yaz did make small mental notes of how the Doctor had changed over the years, there was no anger anymore; none of the rage that Martha spoke about. The Doctor Yaz knew wanted to educate and share. She didn’t want death or destruction even though it all. It was hard to imagine the Doctor wishing death on anyone.  
Martha listened in ore as the policewomen shared the story of Rosa parks and the witches while Yaz hid her jealous after hearing about Shakespeare. Yaz could not help but wonder if she would ever become like Martha Jones, talking about the events so matter of factly. There was no emotion as she spoke anymore. It was like she was reciting a textbook or a fictional story. Not her past.  
“You met the Jadoon right?” Martha said, “In Gloucester, it wasn’t my area but we assumed he was there; couldn’t find him though. Knowing the gender change would have been useful,”  
“Yep we were there,” Yaz smiled holding her empty cup of coffee in her hand as if it was still keeping her warm. “That’s where we met that Captain,”  
“Captain Jack” Martha correct, she couldn’t help but smile at his name,  
“He officiated my wedding you know,” The UNIT agent smiled as recited the memory. It was clear this memory came from a different place then the Doctor stories, “Much to UNITS horror, he’s still using a vortex manipulator, him and the Doctors wife seem to share it. Not that we have seen her in a while.”  
Yaz couldn't help but let her breath catch.

“Assume you never met her,”  
Yasmin never said anything, she didn’t need to her face was a picture,  
“Yeah I didn’t believe it either, it was always about Rose when I met him, but then I heard from Kate when I returned. Kate is the Chief Scientific Officer; she is also the women who runs and deals with the achieves. She often emails to cancel a meeting because of a Professor Song that pops in every so often; she not really my area mind, not anymore, I used to be a Medical officer before I went freelance. Often this mysterious woman returns with random artefacts or to return something she had stolen.” Martha chuckles a little in disbelief as she spoke. “She is everything you could imagine the Doctor falling in love with, she has an augmented life span as well. None of us could ever compete with that.” Martha spoke about the whole thing in a way that Yasmin envied.  
For some reason that hit the young women hard. Yaz knew the Doctor had countless lives before she fell into Sheffield. The Doctor had spent thousands of years in wars she didn’t want to talk about, there were people and places she wouldn’t go to, but a marriage was something she couldn’t have even imagined.  
There were names the Doctor mentioned often, names the Fam got used to hearing in passing, names they knew not to question, an odd comment about the Ponds or an impossible girl. She couldn’t mention the Daleks without mentioning a Sarah-Jane Smith, which was always said with regret in her voice. The Doctor told the once told them to give her notice if they had a date back on earth so that she didn’t interrupt them with the Pope or the UN. Yaz almost chuckled to herself thinking of all the things the doctor had said, all the hints to her past life that she didn’t mention in fully. The brief moments in the middle of telling another story that Yaz never questioned.  
Sometimes Yaz would notice the Doctor scanning for another Tardis when they were at an interesting event or important place. Until the police officer sat down she believed what the Doctor said, that it was to make sure she didn’t bump into herself but now she couldn’t help but wonder if she was looking for something else, someone else. A whole other part of the Doctor's life none of them even thought about. She never gave them a reason to.  
The barista was watching the two women from affair trying to decipher the conversation. Trying to work out what had sent 2 women to sit in a coffee shop in Sheffield centre for 4 hours. The teenager with dyed hair and small arm tattoos badly covered with plasters had seen 2 strangers laugh and cry then laugh some more. Maybe long-lost relatives she thought to herself; she couldn’t help but be glad for the entertainment.

Doctor Martha Jones checked her watched before beginning to stand up. They were both glad for the chat but Yaz couldn’t help but wonder if she would ever see this strange but relatable woman again. Martha Jones was glad that she had got to speak about the Doctor again, she hadn’t uttered his name since Micky died and she half hoped he would show up for the funeral, she had rang the number but no reply. There hadn’t been any reply in almost 5 years but she still had it saved.

"Before you say no. Think about it" Martha Jones said as she pulled an A4 brown envelope out of her bag.  
The younger women looked around waiting for it to all become obvious.  
"And I promise no matter what happens your 'house' is safe" Martha put house in quotation Marks as she spoke which couldn't help but make them both smile a little. Yasmin Khan probationary police officer took a brown envelope over a coffee table what could go wrong she thought to herself as she pulled it across the table and opened it slowly.

\---UNIFIED INTELLIGENCE TASK FORCE JOB OFFER---

Yaz read the first line over and over again. She could bring herself to read any further. She didn't need to it was already all too much.  
"When it all ended for me. I needed to be around people that didn't think my stories were crazy."  
"So was this an interview" Yaz spoke before she could think now more confused than ever.

"As I said I had done my research and I've been where you've been." Martha spoke softly. You have no idea what I am going through the police officer thought to herself but decided to remain silent. While she appreciated the offer. Martha jones walked away from the doctor, something Yaz could never image doing, but she then could not imagine her family being in danger either.  
"I want you on my team." Martha continued. "We do bigger projects, follow hunches. It’s not all soldiers and guns mind. It is not all aliens and running into chaos either but it’s a compromise."  
"Wow," The young women said reading slightly further down the page.  
"I had better go, read through it. Think about it. call me soon," Martha Jones stood up as Yaz still looked at the envelope.  
The two women hugged; it was awkward but they both knew too much for a handshake. 

\---------------

“Thanks for returning my call,” Ryan said seriously as she walked into her local pub.  
“It’s just…”  
“I know mate,” Ryan said, he realised he didn’t have a clue. His heart hurt for the doctor, for all the possible ways that could have ended but didn’t. Unlike Yaz and even Graham, Ryan was glad to be alive, he didn’t have survival guilt he just wanted to live his life the best he could, for his Gran and for the Doctor as well.  
“So Sonya said you went back to work,”  
“Yeah a few weeks ago now, my days have just been merging. I should have rung you back sooner. I have been staying at the Tardis,” She stumbled on her words, “Not the Tardis but you know,”  
Ryan smiled, he had missed his friend.  
“You have been avoiding me for weeks I am just glad you’re okay,”

“I have a plan, I got a new job offer. So I am going to do what the Doctor wanted,” She paused for a moment trying to stop her internal debate on what the doctor actually wanted, “I am going to live my life,”  
“New job, you taking it ?”  
“I got it last week but I told myself 10 days of tears then I am going to phone and take the London job,”  
“Very well planned out.” He said taking a sip of his pint before it all sunk in, “London?”  
Yaz nodded slowly,  
“You’re really leaving the police, where you going?”  
“UNIT,” She said calmly, “or if my Mum asks an international liaison post with the military slash government in London, I told them it was basically a fancy police job that involved travelling occasionally,”  
Ryan couldn't help but hide the wave of emotion going over his face. He had hoped that it would all start to return to normal, Graham was back with his old bus driving friends but couldn't stop talking about planning a trip to the States or maybe just down south depending on the weather this summer as he was no longer a big fan of planes. Being home and standing still they both missed Grace but it somehow made them stronger. The doctor had given the pair a will to live and Grace had shown them how. 

“What about Graham?” 

The police officer didn't tell Ryan that she had to Graham a couple of days before, she didn’t know who else to turn to with all this. He was as supportive and understanding as she expected. They didn't speak about the Doctor; not really but the older man had brought a packet of custard creams just in case a different version of the doctor showed up. She had a time machine after all, he said when they decided to upon the digestives instead.

“He understands why I can’t say. I want more, I am capable of so much more.” She paused “I’ve tried Ryan to do what you and Graham are doing but I was no one before the Doctor, I shared a room in a flat with my little sister, I was a police officer that struggled to get out of bed every morning, I wanted to run away from it all. Now we are back here and I have to stand still again, every street reminds me of her and what I could be. I hear the sound of the Tardis or her laughter every time I am in silence. I need to get out of here, I was never made for Sheffield,”  
Ryan didn’t reply straight away. He let the women continue, Yaz slowly explained about Martha Jones and the job and the reopening of UNIT. She spoke about the coffee meeting with a glint of smile, it was the first smile Ryan had seen from the women since they returned.  
“Well let me know if you need help packing,”

**Author's Note:**

> Please no hate!


End file.
